Mass Surge In U.S. To Sign Up For Obamacare

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Washington (AFP) — Hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to buy President Barack Obama’s new health insurance plans, prompting a victory lap from a White House that paid a steep political price for its greatest achievement.

The scramble to sign up under Obama’s health care law at the end of a six-month enrollment window caused website glitches and long lines at on-the-spot enrollment centers.

But Republicans renewed a vow to repeal the law, which they say costs jobs, handcuffs small businesses and represents a government power grab in the private health care market.

The Health Insurance Marketplace was preparing to close on a record breaking day of operations — with more than three million visits to HealthCare.gov and more than one million calls to the call center as of 8 p.m. (GMT), a U.S. official said.

It remained unclear, however, how many of those people went through the whole process of securing Affordable Care Act insurance plans.

“I signed the #ACA so millions could know the peace of mind that comes with health insurance,” Obama wrote in a tweet.

In a rare moment of triumph in Obama’s so far grim second term, senior White House officials saw the deadline day rush as vindication after the disastrous roll out of the health care website late last year.

“There has been a remarkable story since the dark days of October and November,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Officials said a problem with the Healthcare.gov website stopped people from establishing new accounts several times.

But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius nevertheless hailed the “huge surge day” in an interview with HuffPost Live.

It will be months, however, before the long-term success of Obamacare in broadening access and making medical insurance affordable can be assessed, and the law remains a political albatross for the president and fellow Democrats.

The law demands that all Americans have health insurance or pay a fine, but offers subsidies for the less well-off to sign up.

The White House said that the final enrollment figures for the first year would be substantially higher than the six million figure already recorded. Officials had earlier set seven million enrollments as the standard for success.

The health care law is Obama’s signature domestic political achievement and the most sweeping social reform in decades in the United States.

Yet its passage and implementation ignited a partisan battle and highlighted deep ideological divisions cleaving the United States.

Republicans, however, are rubbishing administration claims, warning that the new law is crippling small business owners and costing jobs.